


Floating in the Dark

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-11
Updated: 2010-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Sam, water is comfort, water is calm; being in water is something he needs. (mid-S1)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Floating in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/spnroundtable/profile)[**spnroundtable**](http://community.livejournal.com/spnroundtable/) [Prompt-and-Fill Session #2](http://community.livejournal.com/spnroundtable/250451.html) for [](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/profile)[**oxoniensis**](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/)'s prompt, "Sam skinny-dipping."

There's something Sam loves--craves, even--about the sensation of having water all around his body, enveloping him, pulling him down and holding him up all at the same time. He can remember being small, small enough that even a standard motel bathtub was big to him. He could slip underwater and feel his hair swimming all around his head, hold his breath and listen to the weird hum of the room vibrate through the water and the walls of the tub. Later on there were motel courtyard swimming pools, when they were full of water and not crusted with dead leaves, and backyard pool parties when he could get in with the right kids. When they were somewhere it was warm enough to swim during the school year.

When he was at Stanford, Sam would get up early sometimes and head to the campus gym when the pool was open but nearly empty. He didn't want to have to swim down a lane in a regimented fashion, people pushing through the water on all sides of him. He liked to swim underwater, slipping through it with his whole body like a flexible wedge, or else swim the butterfly stroke--not fast, racing through the water, but slow, feeling the water move all around his body, with his body. He dreamed that one day, when he and Jess had kids and a big house in the suburbs, he might have a pool of his own.

But before that--just as soon as they bought their own place, just as soon as he had the money--he was going to remodel the bathroom to have a big tub. A huge tub, big enough for half a dozen drunk girls in one of the dumb reality shows Jess liked to watch when she had a hard day. Big enough for grown-up Sam, wearing nothing at all, to slip his whole body under the water and step away from the world just until it was time to take another breath.

But what Sam really loves and craves is real water, water that can't be confined to a master bath or a gym or a courtyard. The ocean is amazing, but it's powerful too, and Sam has too much respect for that kind of power to be able to relax the way he wants, to lay back against the weight of all that water and just float. What he likes best is a pond or a lake or a deep lazy bend in a stream. Some of his best memories of growing up with Dean and Dad are lit with sunlight filtering down through trees overhead and grounded by scrubby grass giving way to banks of slippery clay or mud mixed with rocks and then water. Warm water on top giving way to cool, still water below and then a slimy bottom full of things he wanted to explore if only the light went down far enough for him to see.

He and Dean would play, wrestling in the water and showing off for each other with flips and who could hold their breath the longest, and then Dean would get bored, clamber out to dry land to hang out with Dad and get first dibs on sandwiches. And Sam would float, just close his eyes and let his feet dangle into the cooler layer of water, his arms stretched out in case he bumped into something. Sam would feel safe and calm and free, all at the same time, and he could stretch the moment out forever until Dean or Dad broke him out of his trance, calling him in for lunch.

Now, Jess was gone and Sam's dreams of the future burnt away with her. Dad was somewhere, nowhere maybe, and he and Dean were traveling hard. One crappy motel room after the next, with tiny tubs and showers set so low that Sam had to crouch down to wash his hair. Summer vacation season was over, long gone, and the motel pools were dry, drained, covered in leaves. Sam's skin itched for water to soak out the lingering traces of smoke he thought he could smell sometimes; down under the skin his nerves crawled for that release.

They were moving through the south, and for January the evenings were warm. The job was done, nobody else died, and Sam remembered the big pond he saw on the town map. Dean was set on them leaving town that evening, but a little delay would be okay. Had to be okay. Sam pointed out the blue blob on the map to Dean, and Dean nodded. It would be okay.

Darkness fell early, and as they headed west from town Dean turned off onto a side road that was little more than a path and then stopped at the spot where decades of other cars had carved out a turn-around. Sam unfolded himself from the car and shed his jacket, leaving it on the seat. Dean just turned up his music, clicked the headlights off, and Sam walked away, following the damp smell of the pond until he reached the brittle winter grass of the bank. He shone his flashlight on the pond and saw that the surface was clean of algae, just a few newly-fallen leaves littering the water. He stripped off his flannel and his t-shirt, heeled out of his shoes and pulled down his jeans.

The night air was chilly against his bare skin, but he tugged down his underwear and stepped out of them because soaking wet boxers seeping through his jeans and into the car seat wouldn't be a good thing. As he stepped into the pond, his ankles froze at the shock of the cold water but his toes squished pleasantly in the clay beneath them. He pushed out far enough that he could spread his arms and swim a few strokes, then he ducked his head underwater and flipped around to float on his back.

The night was clear, and Sam could see the stars spread out over him, their pattern disrupted by mostly-bare tree branches. He could hear some birds, the movements of small animals through the dry brush, but most of the insects were underground waiting for spring, leaving the night quiet. When Sam closed his eyes, there was nothing, nothing other than his body and the water around him, penetrating his pores, washing over his neck, slipping around every bit of him that Jess had ever touched. Sam breathed heavily and felt the water move with him, but then its stillness moved inside him and he let everything go, just for a little while. It all went away, and there was just Sam in the darkness, and it was okay.

Sam wasn't sure how long he'd been gone, but when he returned to the car, dressed but for the flannel he'd used as a towel, the music was off and Dean had his head tipped back against the seat. He sat up and unlocked the door when Sam tapped on the window, and Sam shrugged into his jacket before getting inside, glad for the thick warmth of it.

"You good?" Dean asked as he held the key in the ignition without turning it.

Sam took a breath and felt the cool stillness of the water inside him. "I'm okay," he said. And it was true.


End file.
